Deacons for Defense

Ratial, or, in fact, antiratial movies is something that I am interested in. I have seen a few and I never deny to see another one. Today I watched “Deacons for Defense” which was made for television, but is still a pretty good piece on the subject.

IMDB rating: 7.0
My rating: 8.0
Celebrity hightlights: Forest Whitaker in the main role.

Firstly, about the movie. It is a really nice piece. Ratial issues are always surrounded by drama and this films brings in a good chunk of drama. The story is interesting. It is also claimed to be based on historical events, but I, as usual, won’t judge that. It does look like something that could have easily happened in real life.

Character development could have been better, but the camerawork and photography were outstanding. I really liked the pieces that were shot in black and white. It felt so much appropriate!

Secondly, about ratial movies. As I have already mentioned, I have a seen a few of them. I find the issue interesting. What I don’t like is how templated the perspective has become. Most of the ratial movies display white people hating black people. Sometimes black people hate white people in return. Another perspective is when black people hate and abuse white people. For some reason, this is displayed mostly in crime movies with prisons, downtowns, gangs, etc. Also, most of the ratial movies are dealing with black and white races. I am pretty sure that the racism issue is much wider than that. I would like to see this covered in the movies. If you know of any that do so, please let me know via comments or email.

Thirdly, an interesting piont brought up by Olga. She noticed a similarity of black people scared by white people with regular people scared by criminals in Russia. There is more to it than just the fear. Everyone knows criminals personally. Noone is doing anything about it. Laws apply differently. There are bars, pubs, hotels, casinos and even shops that are not open to the public. It is dangerous to go in there if you don’t belong. Corruption is on all levels – from the local police department to government officials. Interesting that I never noticed this myself. Right after Olga mentioned this issue, I immidiately realised what she was talking about, no explanations needed. There is indeed a strong similarity here.

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